More than half of B2B organisations are struggling to implement their digital strategy due to a lack of support from within internal teams.
According to a survey by tech firm Acquia, gaining this backing was the single biggest challenge for those tasked with executing an organisation’s digital strategy.
In addition, 52% said they lacked support from other departments, and more than a third don’t believe they have support from the board. A further 35% said they didn’t have the required skills, and 16% confessed they don’t have the budget necessary to implement it.
While more than nine out of 10 companies said delivering a personal experience through digital was important, almost the same proportion said achieving this was a challenge. Of the B2B firms canvassed, more than half (52%) don’t know anything about their website visitors, and 47% lack the money to introduce personalisation tools to their site.
More than two-thirds of B2B firms are using implicit personalisation – where visitor behavior is tracked and then content is presented based on their clicking pattern. But 32% would like to use explicit personalisation, which is driven by known visitor profiles.
James Murray, EMEA general manager at Acquia, said: “The startling thing about this research is that, while there is a high degree of confidence at the strategic level among chief digital officers, this confidence is not mirrored by those who execute those strategies.
“What we see instead is that, once the strategy enters the real world, there are numerous barriers to delivering on the ambition. Whether this is down to a lack of internal support, things taking longer than expected, or the sheer complexity of operating in a multi-everything environment, these barriers risk limiting the performance of businesses in an ever more digital world.”
The poll canvassed 450 firms in the UK, France and Germany, of which 354 were B2B businesses.
